


Look at Me Now (A Man Who Won't Let Himself Be)

by luckjustkissedyouhello



Series: Rollercoastermoon's Whumptober 2020 Fics [8]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Parents, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Broken Bones, Crying, Domestic Violence, Emergency room, Family Issues, Flashbacks, Found Family, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, I did Not see that coming, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Parent Death, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Self-Harm, Siblings, Slurs, Support, Violence, Whumptober 2020, abandoned, broken down, estranged family, past suicidal actions discussed, punching mirrors is not smart kids, really read the warnings please, sammy stevens has self-esteem issues, shitty characters are shitty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27203860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckjustkissedyouhello/pseuds/luckjustkissedyouhello
Summary: Sammy gets an unexpected On-Air call that stirs up memories he'd rather leave in the past.
Relationships: Ben Arnold & Emily Potter & Lily Wright & Sammy Stevens, Ben Arnold & Sammy Stevens, Sammy Stevens & Jack Wright & Lily Wright
Series: Rollercoastermoon's Whumptober 2020 Fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946800
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rough one and I'm worried I missed some tags. Please read the end notes for Chapter One, if you have any triggers/DNWs relating to any of the above tags.  
> \---  
> The idea was a small one that blossomed into a 15K fic...as ya do.

Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved  
See my heart, I decorate it like a grave  
You don't understand who they thought I was supposed to be  
Look at me now, a man who won't let himself be  
Alice in Chains - “Down in a Hole”

They’re only twenty minutes into the show and already Sammy has a headache. Cynthia will do that to a person. She’s complaining about someone in her neighborhood using her trash cans at the curb to toss their dog’s shit out while they walked the dog - even though it’s in a bag, she’s furious about the act. She, of course, doesn’t use the word shit, instead, she actually says ‘doo-doo’ like she’s five. She’s in the middle of telling them how she called the sheriff's office about this, like a totally normal human being. He (very maturely) crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue at something Cynthia says about poor Duncan Beadle - a nice guy, if just not athletic, in Sammy’s opinion - and Ben has to put his hand over his mouth to mute his giggle. It’s _riveting_ talk radio, Sammy’s sure. 

“If this is an ongoing case, Cynthia, I’m not sure we can talk about it on air,” Sammy interrupts. It’s a Hail Mary at best, they both know that they do the exact opposite of that every night. “Also, please don’t refer to Deputy Beadle like that. It’s just hurtful.”

“Oh, _you_ would defend his shoddy police work, _Shotgun_. You know you love all the deputies in King Falls because they always protect your troublemaking as—“

“Cynthia,” Ben cuts in. “Troy has asked us repeatedly not to talk about active investigations on the air. No matter how small. Let's respect his request.”

And Ben ends the call. Sammy chuckles, he can’t help it. “How can she refer to it as ‘doo-doo’ but be okay with referring to my—“

“Backside!” Ben interrupts him, grinning. “Too many FCC fines, man. Merv is getting angry.”

“Angry enough to fix the bleeper?”

“Uhhh. Negatory, Sammy. Something about us being grown men that can watch our mouths.”

“But the whole town's mouths too? That’s a lot of mouths, Ben. Your mouth, my mouth, I could handle that—”

“—Uh, ‘handle my mouth’ Sammy? Are you—Are you flirting with me?” Ben puts on an extra scandalized sounding voice to make Sammy know he’s only kidding. He’s grinning at Sammy as he says it, Ben doesn’t really think Sammy’s flirting. 

“Hmm. If I was flirting with you, _Benny_ , you’d know,” Sammy answers, grinning wickedly at Ben, dropping his voice low. Sammy may be over a decade out of practice, but he does know how to flirt.

As he hoped, Ben goes red, and his voice raises a few octaves. “Let’s-let's-uh-let's just take another call, shall we?” He says after a moment, blindly hitting a line on the board. Oh...that’s something to explore later.

And then an all too familiar voice Sammy never expected to hear again says: “If you two fags,” Ben gives an indignant ‘hey!’ at the insult, but the caller goes on “are done, I need to talk to Samuel.”

Sammy feels like he’s been kicked in the balls, launching his heart straight into his throat. His chest is locked between inhaling and exhaling. Ben is watching him, worry creasing his face. ‘ _You have no idea how ugly this is going to be. I don’t want you to hear, or_ know _any of this,_ ’ Sammy thinks, nauseous already. 

“Shane?” His voice is up an octave in shock - pretty hard to control the pitch of your voice when you can’t feel your goddamn face. Ben’s hand is still over the dump button. Sammy shakes his head. Ben frowns but sets his hand on the desk, drumming his fingers nervously.

On the line, in his headset, Shane answers ‘yes’ just as Ben asks: “Sammy, who is this?” There’s animosity in one voice, open concern in the other.

“Thi—“ Sammy has to stop, clear his throat, remind himself that he gets paid to talk all night long, he’s a goddamn professional, he _knows_ how to talk, damnit. “This is Shane. He’s, uh, he’s my brother.” 

They both speak at the same time again. Shane says: “Ex-brother.”

Ben blurts out: “You have a brother?”

Sammy closes his eyes against Ben’s wounded look - he’s not sure if it’s because of what Shane just said or because Sammy never told him about Shane. Sammy really can’t take either reason right now, can’t deal with this from Shane, whatever this is, while Ben’s looking at him like _that_. “What the fuck do you want, Shane?” His voice is thankfully solid as he asks it. Inside? He’s already a fucking mess, and Shane’s been on the line for less than a minute. He can already feel his breaths coming too quick, too empty. 

“Ohhh. Big man, are you now, Sam?” Sammy realizes Shane’s voice is slurred, he’s drunk at almost six am Florida time. It explains a lot of things, the chief among them is why his brother that disowned him deigned to call him. Sammy feels sick. “Last time I saw you, you were on the ground crying like a little bitch because you never learned to take a punch and deal with it like a man. You fucked up, you got your ass beat. No need to cry about it, as far as I’m concerned.” 

Ben makes a distressed sound across from him. Sammy looks up, sees the concern and confusion written all over his chosen brother’s face. It would hurt to see if Sammy wasn’t only half in the radio station in King Falls. The other half of him is almost twenty years back in time, laying on cracked asphalt, sobbing as a motel manager called an ambulance despite Sammy begging him not to, choking on blood and saying he didn’t want any more trouble (from the very people that laid him out, though the poor man didn’t know why Sammy was afraid). 

Shane continues, because why the fuck not drive the knife deeper: “How do you even get guys willing to stick their dicks up your ass? Don’t they realize you’re not a real man?”

“Okay! This is over,” Ben says and slams the dump button so hard the desk shakes. Sammy flinches at the sound. Ben stares at him with wide eyes for a moment, two, then says, voice tight: “Commercial.”

The ‘On Air’ light winks off. Sammy looks down at the board to get away from the look he's getting. He needs to get up, get some air because he doesn’t think there’s any air in the room.

“Sammy…” Ben says, trailing off. He sounds lost and upset. Sammy knows the feeling. He’s sure Ben has a thousand questions. Sammy just doesn't know if he has it in him to answer any of them.

Line five lights up on the board. Sammy has the Caller ID, Ben is banned from being in charge of it for at least another week, sees it light up with a Florida number, sees the name ‘Stevens, Shane’ appear. His hand reaches out on its own volition. Picking up the call doesn’t cut into the commercial being broadcast. But it comes through their headsets. Ben makes a startled sound and opens his mouth to protest. Sammy holds up a shaking hand, silently begging Ben to understand. 

“Real brave. Have your buddy wear the big boy pants and hang up on me.”

Sammy ignores the barb and starts talking before he loses his nerve. “He hung up before I could tell you I didn’t fuck up that day. I found out our mother pretty much killed herself by ignoring the doctor’s orders and drinking herself to death. And then was told I wasn’t allowed inside to see her. So I hit the bastard trying to stop me from coming inside.” He left the funeral home before things got really ugly, afraid of being attacked by the rest of the bastards, shot by his fucking Uncle Jim, or arrested, but proud of himself that after twenty-one years, he finally stood up to his bogey-man, the bastard he still had nightmares about. Later that night, his father (sporting a blossoming black eye that was one of the most satisfying things Sammy has seen in his life), Shane, and a few uncles and adult cousins all descended down on the motel Sammy was staying at (halfway towards obliterated on dirt-cheap vodka) and jumped him. They only stopped when the motel owner came out with a shotgun. Sammy had already been crying when they kicked in the motel room door. He just never stopped as they pulled him out. Blocking all that, he adds in: “That wasn’t a fuck up, it was punching the bastard that beat on her in his fucking face.” Feeling his father's face under his fist was worth getting the shit beat out of him by six grown-ass men. 

Shane makes an unamused sound. “I’m sure you tell yourself that. I don’t care what you think happened that night or when we were kids—“

“—always were good at denying reality, Shane,” Sammy cuts in, unable to stop himself. 

Shane gives a frustrated grunt that sounds so much like their father that Sammy flinches. “Whatever. I’m sure you blame me for telling Dad about your little homoporn when I found it, too.”

“What the fuck?” Ben barks, obvious contempt in his voice. For a hellish moment Sammy thinks it’s directed at him, not Shane before reality and the knowledge that Ben Arnold can’t hate him for being gay, is practically incapable of hating Sammy, resurfaces in Sammy’s admittedly stressed mind. 

“Homoporn? Hardly. It was a goddamned page from a catalog advertising men’s underwear.” Which...is almost embarrassing to say in front of Ben (Sammy didn’t have a computer, their father wouldn’t let one in the house, his options were limited) but….this is all fucking embarrassing to say in front of Ben. “I was supposed to leave for college in two goddamn days, Shane. You could’ve let it go.”

“No. I couldn’t‘ve. I wasn’t going to let you go to some liberal college where sucking dick was an acceptable pastime. I had to try and save your immortal soul, Sammy.”

Sammy barks out a laugh, it’s bitter and strained, even to his own ears. “Save my fucking soul, Shane, really? How was having our father beat the shit out of me going to make me less gay? He almost fucking killed me with that goddamned baseball bat!” Ben makes another wounded animal kind of sound, then clamps his hand over his mouth. Sammy’s not sure if it’s to keep himself quiet or from being sick. “If Mrs. Lopez across the street—“

“—fucking wetb—“ Shane starts to say, but Sammy can’t let him say that slur, not against anyone, but especially not against the woman who saved Sammy’s life while his supposed brother (and drunk mother) watched their father wail on him with a baseball bat…He can’t let Shane do that. So Sammy just talks louder:

“—I’d be dead, Shane. No thanks to you, my big brother that never fucking protected me. You were so upset about me showing up to Mom’s funeral? You ever get between him and her? Him and me? No.” 

Shane snorts. Again, it’s a sound that is so similar to their father’s sounds that Sammy shudders. “She always mouthed off to him. So did you.” As if that justified all the pain. In Shane’s world, it did. “And I doubt he would’ve killed you. You’re being a dramatic little f—“

“-I had a collapsed lung! He hit me _in the face_ with a baseball bat! In my goddamned head!” Sammy’s actually fucking screaming now, shaking with rage. Or remembered fear. Both, maybe. 

He closes his eyes against the memory that surfaces refuses to remain stuffed down deep where Sammy keeps it. Coming home from saying goodbye to his best friend (who never spoke to him again after Sammy, tongue loosened by a copious amount of morphine and trauma, scared to death he’d never be safe again, admitted why his father took the bat to him) and seeing his mother sitting out the couch right inside the front door crying (because Sammy was gay, not because of the rage she knew her husband was about to unleash on their son), Shane sitting on the stairs, where he liked to watch their father go at Sammy. The catalog page was on the coffee table. Sammy knew instantly that he was _fucked_ , but didn’t, at that moment, know how far his father was prepared to go. Didn’t know that the man was going to nearly kill him. 

Sammy turned his head to check if the belt their father kept on a hook by the front door was still there or not - the belt was wide as Sammy’s forearm, hung there so that everyone that lived under Shane Senior’s control knew what would happen if they fucked up (and wasn’t it fun to lie to few rare friends that came over, asking why his father hung a belt like that?). If the belt was off the hook or not was often the first indication of how violent his father was feeling -- an early warning system. That system failed Sammy the last day he lived in his parent’s home. 

Because instead of seeing the belt, Sammy turned to face his father right as the man took a swing at his face with the bat. If he hadn’t thrown his arm up at the last second, and wound up with both bones in his forearm shattered, and a broken cheekbone, who knows if he’d be sitting in the King Falls AM station, or anywhere above six feet of dirt. It was Sammy’s scream, full of terror and agony, that alerted their neighbor. She looked through her front window in time to see Sammy go down, and Shane Senior keep swinging at his prone son (she could only see that he was swinging at bat downwards, she later told Sammy, visiting him in the hospital as if she knew she’d be the only one to do so). She called nine-one-one. 

On the floor in that house of horrors he grew up in, Sammy didn’t know that help was coming. He covered his head and curled up as small as he could -a not unusual position for Sammy to find himself in when attacked by his father, though in his later teens he stopped trying to make himself small and started making his father look him in the eyes as he laid into him - the only power move Sammy had. The position left his ribs open, but he figured his brain was more important than ribs - definitely a normal choice a person has to make in life, whether to let his father smash his ribs in or his skull - which was a smart decision right up until one of the broken, jagged pieces of said ribs punctured his lung. He can still remember gasping and feeling like he wasn’t getting air, on top of the sheer _pain_ the beating caused.

By the time the Sheriff's Department pulled up out front of the Stevens's household, Sammy was fading, losing consciousness, convinced that he was going to die on that ugly beige carpet. The whole time his father was shouting abuse, telling Sammy he was going to hell, that he was disgusting and useless and a thousand other awful things Sammy always told himself, just with more physical pain. All that was terrible, but hearing him tell his brother, Sammy’s Uncle Jim, when he threw open the door: “I hope I’ve killed his faggot ass. Could ya blame me, Jimmy?” With casual hatred was awful. Sammy was sure his father meant every word. And that his Uncle Jim would make sure the bastard didn’t see the inside of a jail cell that night, or any other. And he didn’t. Sammy was ‘encouraged’ not to press charges by his Uncle. 

Ben touches Sammy’s hand, and Sammy is violently yanked out of the memory. He closes his eyes against the dizziness the act of coming back to himself, to the moment, causes, against the worried look he’s sure Ben has on his face. Sammy sucks in a gasp for breath, his hearing phasing back in, hearing Shane say: “—lived! Always so damn drama—“

“—Why,“ Sammy interrupts to ask, much louder than he means to be. But it shuts Shane up for a moment. He starts over again: “Why did you fucking call, Shane?”

Shane stops ranting about him overreacting to being beaten with a baseball bat, and gives a bitter laugh. “To tell you the good news, Sam!” He answers sarcastically. “Good news in your eyes anyway. He’s dead. Died this - yesterday - morning.” 

The room is slowly spinning around him. Silence settles on them, except for the slight wheeze in Sammy’s too quick breaths. Ben is staring at him. 

“What, nothing to say? You always had a lot to say, growing up, your mouth always getting you into trouble.”

Sammy hears the pop-fizz of a beer can being opened. Wonders if Shane still drinks Natty-Ice, the same shit beer their father drank by the case. Their first beers were pilfered cans - Shane was twelve, Sammy ten. Shane was always a fucking rat of an older brother, said it was Sammy’s idea. Sammy got it twice as bad as Shane did. He missed a week of school because he couldn’t sit at a desk. 

Shane says: “Wow. Are you having one of your freakouts? I thought you’d’ve grown out of that by now, Sam. I bet you still carve yourself up like a thirteen-year-old girl, too. Jesus. You’re almost forty and you still cry about how Dad was with us? He was just quick with his hands, get over yourself. He had to toughen you up, you were such a little fa-“

Anger flares, and Sammy’s cutting Shane off before he can think better of it, before he can stop and remind himself not to engage in his brother’s bullshit any more than he already has. “--Quick with his hands? Quick with his fuckin’ hands? Muhammad Ali was quick with his hands, our father wasn’t quick with his fucking hands, he was an abusive piece of shit that took swings at us, his fucking children, as often as he could!” The floodgates are open, there’s no holding back now. He’s in this. His voice rising as he goes on: “Forget when he nearly _murdered_ me. How about the fact that I have _scars_ from him hitting me with the buckle end of his belt, Shane. Do you have any idea how hard you have to hit someone with a belt to leave scars?”

Shane scoffs. “You’re exaggerating. He never hit me like that. You always were a pussy about it, Sam. That’s why he had to lay into you so often. Toughen you up.” 

“I wasn’t a pussy, I was a _child_ ,” Sammy shouts, he’s lost the ability to control himself in this conversation, lost it when he answered the second call. “He was a grown-ass man that fucking regularly beat on me until I passed out!”

“Sammy, maybe you should hang--” Ben says shakily, reminding Sammy, once again, that he’s in the room. That this isn’t a private conversation between Shane and him, that Ben is a witness. Sammy keeps forgetting Ben’s there. Hearing all this. Sammy’s skeletons laid bare. Sammy looks up at Ben. Ben’s crying. _Fuck_. 

Sammy opens his mouth to agree that this should end, but Shane slurs: “And it didn’t change anything, Sam. He shoulda hit you harder. You’re still a flaming fag aren’t you?”

Sammy flinches, hears Ben suck in a breath, getting ready to interject on Sammy’s behalf. Sammy’s not sure he can take that. So he takes a deep breath and answers “Yup. Still a raging homosexual,” with all the confidence he very much does not have. Sammy Stevens is an actor, though, isn’t he? He was taught well as a child pretending his life wasn’t a living fucking nightmare, after all. So he presses on. “He disowned me almost twenty years ago, Shane. Ya know, after the attempted murder via baseball bat. I don’t give a shit that he’s dead. You know that. Why are you _really_ calling me?” 

For a long moment, there’s silence. Sammy thinks he might get the truth out of Shane. And then no, not the real truth is what he’s told. Shane says: “To tell you if you pull the same shit you did at Mom’s funeral that I’ll beat your homo ass myself. Nobody else getting involved this time. Just you and me.”

"Damn. I'll piss on his grave some other time," Sammy snaps and ends the call with a trembling hand.

For a long moment, he just sits there, eyes locked on the board. He can’t look up at Ben. Not...not after all that. Not after Ben heard it all. Sammy’s chest heaves, but it feels like he’s not getting any air. He can't feel his face.

“Sammy--” Ben starts, his voice trembling.

Sammy can’t hear it. Whatever Ben has to say, Sammy’s positive it will shatter him. He’s breaking right now, splintering apart, but he’s not shattered. Yet. He doesn’t want to do it at the desk where he has to work night after night, or in front of Ben. 

So he stands up. Way too fast. The room tilts violently around him. Sammy hears Ben call his name again as he slaps both hands down on the desk, narrowly missing the board, to stabilize himself. The desk trembles, one of Ben's empty energy drink cans falls off the edge. The sound of it hitting the ground is deafening in the silence, making Sammy flinch.

“Sammy,” Ben says a third time. He sounds destroyed. Sammy can’t deal with that. 

Sammy straightens (hah) up. Stares down at his feet so he doesn't have to look at Ben. He’s not sure what to say, if he can say anything. He’s saved by the commercial break ending the ‘On Air’ sign clicking back on. He ditches his headset and flees Ben’s too big wet eyes, like the coward he is. 

As the door closes behind him he hears Ben say “Uh, folks I think—“ and then the soundproof door is shut, cutting off what is probably Ben signing them off early. Sammy has no illusions that Ben will stay on the air and let him deal with this alone. 

Sammy’s body seems to know where he needs to go and he slams into the station's single bathroom before he realizes he’s gonna be sick. He locks the metal door (Merv seemed to think putting a metal fire door in every doorway would help prevent the place from burning down again, and whatever criminal, money hungry contractor that worked with him agreed) behind him on autopilot and barely makes it to the toilet before he’s vomiting up his guts. 

He’s not sure how long he kneels there. Long enough that Ben starts banging on the door. Sammy doesn’t answer. He can’t. He’s too busy gasping for breath to speak. Instead, he stands and goes to the sink. Runs water. Rinses out his mouth. All like he’s not struggling for air. Like Ben isn’t pounding on the door. 

Sammy catches his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He looks awful. Every bit the weak pathetic mess his father told him he was. Like he’s always known he is. 

He doesn’t make a conscious decision to punch his reflection. But one minute he’s looking at himself and the next the glass is shattered. Ben is really screaming. Rattling the door. Sammy hits the mirror again. And again. And then it’s not really a mirror it’s a metal backing where the mirror was and he keeps hitting that. Hits it again and again until he can’t lift his right arm at all. Keeps going after that.

There’s blood and glass in the sink. Sammy still can’t breathe. It takes him a long moment to realize the pounding he hears is someone at the bathroom door, not his heartbeat thudding in his ears. 

“Goddamnit, open the fucking door!” 

Sammy makes a tiny sound of distress. Because he knows how this will end. The door will explode in on its hinges. He’ll be in so much trouble for not unlocking it for Him. For whatever made Him mad in the first place. But he can’t move. Can’t get up off the floor. 

When did he get on the floor? He’s curled up in the corner as far from the door as he can get, arms up over his head. Trembling. Waiting for the explosion. 

The yelling keeps going. He presses his hands to his ears, digs his nails into his scalp, and squeezes his eyes shut. Crying will only make it worse but he can’t help it. He turns his head and sinks his teeth into his forearm to muffle any sounds of his tears. Maybe if he’s not heard…

The pounding stops. Sammy whimpers around the skin in his mouth as the door clicks open. That’s a new one. Did He have a key? 

Sammy tries to make himself as small as possible, presses his forehead to his knees. He waits to be grabbed, struck, _hurt_. His hands are over his ears so tightly, his breathing so harsh and his pulse up so high it’s thudding in his ears so loudly that he cannot hear anything. He just curls up tight and shakes, knowing he should take it like a man but unable to get any of his muscles to unlock. 

A hand touches the top of his head. Sammy screams before he can stop himself. Screaming is also a Big No. He bites into his arm again. He doesn’t process how gentle the touch was. He’s sobbing and can’t stop, even though he knows, he _knows_ , the tears will cause him so much more pain.

He can sort of hear arguing, but he can’t quite hear what's being said with his hands over his ears, the blood pounding in his head. He thinks he might just die. That he’ll have a heart attack and that will be that. Or he’ll suffocate on the apparent lack of air in the room. 

And then there’s water dumping over his head. Sammy sputters, the shock of cold water makes him let go of his ears, makes him look up. Sammy blinks water out of his eyes, takes in a shuddering gasp of a breath. Standing over him are Lily and Ben, not _Him_.

A few more breaths and he recognizes where he is - the station bathroom. Why is he soaking wet on the floor of the station’s bathroom? 

_Oh_. 

Lily’s holding the bathroom garbage can (thankfully the bag is removed, that’s sitting on the floor under the sink, slowly toppling over), still, looking half ready to fill it up again if he needs another dose of water. 

Ben and Lily are _staring_. Silent. Ben’s crying - Lily keeps brushing a hand over her eyes like she is too. Sammy puts it together. The call. The pounding on the bathroom door. His terror that had nothing to do with now and everything to do with his childhood. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he croaks out, and then he’s diving between them, lurching for the toilet bowl.

His right hand slips off the edge of the seat, he almost faceplants but just catches himself in time with his left. There’s nothing to come up but bile. It burns. His sides ache with the force of his stomach’s spasming. When Sammy opens his eyes, he’s shocked to see the seat is stained red. Is he puking up blood?

Water runs in his eyes and he raises his right hand to wipe at it, but stops when he sees the back of his hand. His hand is covered in blood, under the mess of blood, his fingers and knuckles are blue, purple...and swelling. _Fuck._ It should hurt, but doesn’t.

There’s a piece of glass, about the size of a nickel sticking out of his skin between his knuckles on his pointer finger. Sammy pulls it over the swollen mess of his knuckle and across the back of his hand, shocked that it doesn’t—

“Sammy!” Ben screams, grabs his left hand by the wrist to stop him from pulling the glass any further. Sammy flinches, tries to pull away, but Ben’s grip around his wrist is iron.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Lily mutters, Sammy can just hear her over the pounding in his ears, the wheezing gasps for breath he’s still making.

She holds his right hand by the wrist, and with surprising gentleness, removes the piece of glass. Sammy kneels there watching blood well up on the back of his hand. He flexes his fingers. They don’t want to bend, the swelling stops him, he forces his fist closed. More blood leaks out the various cuts.

“Fuck, Sammy!” Lily says. “Stop doing that.”

Sammy stops because her voice is trembling violently in a way Lily’s voice just doesn’t. She’s normally too strong. 

They’re all so close together- him kneeling Lily and Ben crouching over him. Sammy needs air. He stands up, forgetting that the both of them are still holding onto him, and they stand with him. Only Lily lets go of his wrist, Ben holds on. 

“Woah,” Ben says, free hand coming out to rest against Sammy's chest and keep him on his feet when he nearly pitches forward.

Fuck. Sammy squeezes his eyes shut. Why is everything so spinny?

“Because you’re barely breathing and you’ve been having a panic attack for half an hour!” Lily answers. Shit, he hadn’t meant to ask that out loud. 

Sammy doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s always been good with words. And now he has none. One more thing to abandon him. 

He lets himself be led by Ben’s hand around his wrist. They wind up in Lily’s car. Lily drives while Sammy curls up in the back seat, his head on bens lap, an old promo t-shirt wrapped around his fist in a basic at best attempt at slowing the bleeding. He just goes as he’s directed, letting Lily and Ben maneuver him as they see fit. He can’t take care of himself right now, he’s got enough awareness to see that. At some point, somebody hands him the melt under the tongue Klonopin waifer he’d been prescribed after the whole definitely tried to off himself via The Void fiasco. But he’s not thinking about that right now, so he just awkwardly stuffs the waiter in his mouth with his left hand that he pretends is steady. 

Just like Sammy tries to pretend that Ben's hand isn't trembling as he runs it through Sammy’s hair, that his voice isn’t hoarse from screaming at Sammy to let him in the bathroom. Ben tries to talk Sammy through box breathing. Sammy tries to tell himself that he didn’t just fuck up and scare the pants off Ben. That he didn’t just lay out one of his biggest demons in front of Ben and Lily by extension. Probably Emily too...it’ll spread. Everyone he gives a shit about will know by morning. 

Sammy’s never been good at lying to himself. To others, yes, god yes, but never, deep down, to himself. So he acknowledges it and hates himself instead.


	2. Chapter 2

Sammy wakes up from a dreamless sleep laying on his stomach, on top of his aching right hand. Well, aching might be too light a word for the absolute agony that’s shooting from the tips of his fingers up his arm with every pulse of his heart. He doesn't understand why for a moment, not until after he rolls onto his back and stares at the cast on his hand in the dim late afternoon light filtering through his open blackout curtains. 

Then he remembers: Shane. His bathroom freak out. Sitting in the ER at Big Pine Hospital, trying to look like he was hurting even though he wasn’t, not really because he wasn’t quite inside his body. Just sitting there silently while the doctor explained how badly Sammy had managed to fuck his hand up. Having to get separated from Ben, who had stayed with him the whole time except for the X-Rays, so the doctor could ask him questions about wanting to hurt himself. ‘I’m a fan of the show,’ she said when the ‘have you ever tried to commit suicide’ came up and Sammy couldn’t make a single word (and fuck...almost hurling himself into The Void was the thing that finally broke his ability to lie through his teeth about everything). He’s not sure what she wrote under the ‘how’ section. But when Sammy assured her he wasn’t thinking of offing himself, had no plans or even thoughts of it, and that he had a therapist that he was seeing on the regular, she let him sign out. After she had a private conversation with Ben in the hallway outside his room.

Sammy’s not sure what woke him. Then he hears Ben's voice. It’s not Ben's fault. The wall between their bedrooms is thin. And it’s Ben. He’s upset. Even if he’s trying to be quiet Sammy can hear him talking. 

“I just woke up...Yeah, a few hours?... I finally nodded off around three, four, maybe?... He’s been out all day, sleeping off whatever the hospital gave him since we got home. Who knew the secret to get Sammy to sleep was enough morphine for a doctor to set multiple broken bones and stitch his hand back together.” Ben huffs loud enough that Sammy can hear it. “Was that mean? I don’t—I don’t wanna be mean. I’m not _mad_ but he scared me so bad. It was bad Em, really bad. And it _is_ bad. I don’t know what to do.”

Sammy resists the urge to bury his head under his pillows. That won’t help. Won’t change reality any. So he gets up, not wanting to hear any more of Ben’s conversation. Sammy’s a giant coward who’s grateful someone - probably Ben - left his door open enough that Sammy can slip through so Ben doesn’t hear it creak like it always does as it opens fully. He thinks he might remember Ben bringing him into his room around seven that morning after Sammy refused any food, mumbling about an upset stomach, Ben promising him both doors are open, just call out if he needed anything. Sammy had passed out on the bed, face down, evidently, and fully dressed. At least Ben had helped him get his combat boots off at the front door. 

Ben’s door is between him and the bathroom, so Sammy goes the other way, into the living room and kitchen. Lily is snoring and drooling on the couch, curled up tight around a pillow like she does when she’s upset (fuck, he is the worst). She sleeps like the dead once she’s out. It’s always been getting her to fall asleep that is the issue. 

Sammy walks quietly past her and into the kitchen. He stands there lost, unsure what to do with himself. He’s tempted to go out the backdoor. Walk and walk until the rest of him hurts as much as his hand. But he can’t do that to Ben, or Lily for that matter. He fucked up so badly last night, he can’t do things that will upset either of them any further or they might finally understand the truth - the truth he‘s been telling them for years, _decades_ in Lily’s case - that Sammy fucking Stevens is not a good person to have in your life. 

Sammy opens the fridge because he has nothing else to do, sees the jug of milk, the Hersey’s syrup his 100% adult roommate uses to make chocolate milk, and a memory slams into him, one of the many he’s tried so hard to avoid for decades. It’s like he’s on autopilot as he takes both out, stretches on his tiptoes to grab the rum out of the little half cabinet above the fridge. Sammy’s never been more grateful for their plastic Ben-proof glasses as he is now, awkwardly fumbling with his non-dominant hand, making himself a rum and chocolate milk, heavy on the rum.

Of course Ben finds him just as he’s taking his first sip. The rum, syrup, and milk are still on the counter. His eyes go wide when he realizes what Sammy’s doing. 

“What the fuck are you doing man? You just got a fuck ton of morphine at the hospital! You can’t mix booze and pain meds like that!” Ben’s voice is still hoarse from screaming at Sammy to open the door the night before, and it cracks when he raises his voice - not quite yelling, but close to. Fuck. 

Sammy salutes Ben with his glass. His face feels numb and it doesn’t have anything to do with the rum burning down his clenching throat. “That was hours ago. This is a Martha Stevens specialty.” Sammy takes another big gulp while Ben sputters incredulously. “Husband beat the shut outta your kid until he passed out?” Ben makes that same wounded sound, but Sammy goes on, unable to help himself. Like maybe Shane’s call last night obliterated the walls Sammy’s had in place for literally as long as he can remember, and the floodgates are open (was that mixing metaphors? Sammy’s head is that scrambled he’s not even sure). “You could, ya know, get them away from him, call the police maybe. Ooorr, you could just shake them awake, pour some rum into their fucking Yoo-Hoo so they’ll stop crying about it all, let you clean their goddamn bloody welts - can’t have any wounds getting infected and risk someone actually realizing what the fuck was going on in your shitty little home. Bonus: they'll sleep for hours. If you choose the first option, you’ll be up against a system rigged against you, considering your brother in law is the goddamn town Sheriff. So best to go with the second choice, and then you can drink yourself fucking stupid after.”

Ben looks devastated all over again. Sammy feels like the worst kind of asshole. But he also wants to scream: ‘ _You always ask about my past, Ben, and this is why I never told you!_ ’ But it’s too cruel, too callous of a way to treat a friend, let alone one that he just scared the shit out of less than twenty-four hours ago. Sammy sighs and hands the drink over to him without a second request as an apology. “My hand hurts,” he says flatly, after a moment. “Thought it would help.”

Ben glances at the clock and winces. “Shit, yeah. I bet it does. They said to take your pain medication about three hours ago. I’m sorry I left you sl—“

Sammy can’t take that. Can’t take Ben apologizing to him. Not after last night, what he just said...not hardly ever, if Sammy’s being honest with himself. “—It’s okay,” he promises, gently cutting Ben off. At Ben’s still guilty look, he adds: “I needed the sleep. I’m glad you left me sleeping.” ‘ _I don’t want to be awake anyway_ ,’ he thinks, but kindly doesn’t say. Ben never reacted well to hearing that after The Void Incident. ‘ _That’s, like, half a step above wanting to be dead, Sammy,_ ’ he’d say. And he wasn't fully wrong, either. 

Ben doesn’t look any less guilty. And suspicious as fuck - Sammy’s not a good sleeper, never has been, has always been vocal about how much he hates sleeping - so maybe Sammy’s attempt at assuaging Ben’s guilt is falling flat. After a moment, though, he starts talking. “Okay. Good. That’s—That’s good, then, right? Sleep? It helped?” He asks it a little awkwardly as he pours the rum and milk down the sink, but aside from sounding like he didn’t sleep enough himself, Ben seems to be allowing Sammy to have his white lie. 

“I think? I feel more...in my body,” he frowns, hoping that makes sense. Ben’s seen more than enough of Sammy’s anxious meltdowns, he’s somewhat aware that Sammy sometimes disassociates a little (or a lot, though episodes like last night are few and far between). He hopes it makes sense. Sammy didn’t even know his getting stuck in his head like that had a name until he started therapy.

It seems to. Ben nods. “Good-I mean—I’m not— I’m not glad your hand hurts, dude, but it was scary, last night, at the hospital, when you were acting like it didn’t hurt at all.”

Shit. Sammy had hoped that he fooled Ben at the hospital. He doesn’t know what to say in response, so he just kind of...stands there. Godamnit. This is almost as awkward as when Sammy first moved in, after The Void, when he couldn’t be a person, let alone a person who could function and talk to Ben. 

Ben blinks up at him, too quick to be doing anything but blinking back tears, and turns. Over his shoulder, he says: “The pills are in my fire safe. I’ll get you some.” 

Sammy almost doesn’t process what Ben is saying, talking about the fire safe, what does that have to do with medication? Then realizes: Ben’s got his medication locked up. From _him_. And just like that, all his desire to not be a problem for Ben is gone in a flash of white-hot shame and anger. ‘ _Look, Dad, I’m finally a man like you wanted me to be! Layering anger over the shame just like you taught me!_ ’ Sammy thinks but doesn’t say. 

“What the fuck, Ben!? Are you serious right now!?” Sammy shouts instead, way louder than he means to but he’s not as well into his body as he led Ben to believe. “Are you locking them up from me so I don’t—“

“Swallow them all and wash them down with rum?” Lily cuts him off. If he wasn’t so pissed he’d be grateful she didn’t make him say it. “Fuck yeah we locked them up, Sammy!” She’s sitting up on the couch, looking into the doorway to the kitchen as Sammy comes out and starts after Ben. Sammy hadn’t seen her get up - wonders when she woke. How much of his outburst about his mother she heard.

“Lily!” Ben sounds upset, shocked by her lack of subtlety even though Sammy knows in his gut she’s telling the truth. They were afraid of him doing just that.

So he asks: “Is she right, Ben? You’re locking _my_ medication away from me so I don't fuckin' swallow them all?”

Ben stares at him for a moment too long before answering. “That’s what it says to do in the information packet.” Says it weakly, like he knows it’s a thin excuse at best. 

“Yeah, to keep them from your fuckin’ teenagers or whatever. Not the fucking person that they’re prescribed to!”

Ben opens his mouth to argue but Lily goes off on him again and now all three of them are standing in the hallway between the living room, kitchen, and the bedrooms. “Are you fucking _serious_ Stevens? You don’t see why the Little One would be worried? Look at you!” Sammy takes an involuntary step back and she waves her hands at him, his back hits the wall. Lily visibly starts and then folds her arms over her chest (Sammy wants to crawl into a hole and never come out again). She doesn’t stop yelling though, Sammy’s trauma be damned. “He called me when he couldn’t get you to open the bathroom door. I was already on my way when I heard Shane — don’t give me that look I knew it was going to be a goddamn shitshow you don’t hide your traumas as well as you think you do — and it was a fucking shitshow. _You_ were a goddamn mess. Bleeding and stuck in your head—“

“—Wright, are you just upset you’re no longer the resident shitshow?” Sammy snaps before he can stop himself, before she can say any more of what he was like when they opened the bathroom door last night.

“Brave of you to think I didn’t always know you had that market cornered yourself!” Lily yells right back.

“What the fuck you two!?” A new voice calls from the front door. “None of that is called for!”

They all turn to look at Emily, standing there looking shocked, one hand on the doorknob still. Ben, who can never not smile when he sees her, is the only one to smile. Lily looks sheepish, Sammy feels his face fall. Another witness to his skeletons laid bare and dragged into the light for all to see. 

“He’s being an ass, giving Ben grief about locking up his painkillers so he doesn’t fucking swallow them all and do what he almost did last night!” 

Sammy closes his eyes and is glad the wall is behind him to hold him up. Fucking Lily ‘tact is something that happens to other people’ Wright flaying him bare to Emily, Ben. He wants to argue that he wasn’t acting like an ass now, that he wouldn’t have offed himself the night before, but he can’t lie. Can’t say how the night would’ve ended if Ben and Lily hadn’t unlocked the bathroom door. He’d like to _think_ he wouldn’t do that, but...he would’ve said yesterday morning he wouldn’t go punching a mirror until his hand was mangled, so maybe he’s not the best judge of his own character. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes still clenched tightly closed. “Ben...everyone— _Lily_. I’m sorry.”

Ben makes a sound like he wants to argue with Sammy’s need to apologize. Instead, he says: “You’re sweating, dude. Your hand hurt that bad?” 

Fucking observant little bastard doesn’t miss anything (and Sammy loves him for it). Sammy opens his eyes to give him a long look but doesn’t try to deny it. He nods. “That, and, ya know, dragging a childhood trauma skeleton around with me in the daylight makes me sweaty. Who knew? But mostly the pain, I think,” he says, before he can stop himself. Lily is the only one to make a sound even close to laughter. They always did have the same coping mechanisms. 

“Ooookay. Let me go grab the pills. Lily, can you get Sammy another glass of chocolate milk — hold the rum this time?”

“I don’t want chocolate milk.“

“Tough,” Lily snaps, but her voice is so much more gentle than it was a few moments ago. “You’re not taking opiates on an empty stomach, Stevens. It’ll fuck up your stomach. Drink the milk or wait until after dinner to get some relief.”

Sammy sighs. “Plain milk then?” He requests, before adding in: “Please.”

She heads off to the kitchen, mumbling about wanting to deal with Sammy with an ulcer.

Sammy closes his eyes again. He stands there, propped up against the wall, trying to keep his breathing even, until Emily clears her throat. He opens his eyes and she smiles at him, a sad little smile. “You want to come sit down, Sammy?”

Her fingers twitch like she wants to take his free hand, but she doesn’t. He goes and sits on the couch like she wants him to. He doesn’t know what else to do. Lily comes back in and hands him the glass of milk. He makes a face. There’s a reason he doesn’t drink milk, won’t even eat cereal in milk, and it has everything to do with his mother’s laced chocolate milk trick. It makes him nauseous, even without the chocolate flavor. But he doesn’t think he can argue. He takes a small sip like a good boy.

‘ _Never was a good boy, that’s why you’re like this_ ,’ he thinks, cruelly, to himself. 

Ben comes out of his bedroom then, holding two oblong pills in his hand. “It says you can take one or two.”

Shame burns up Sammy’s spine, but he grunts out “Two.” His hand really fucking hurts. ‘ _Pussy_ ,’ that little voice in his head, the one that sounds like dear old dad, snipes at him. Sammy does what he’s done his whole life and tries valiantly to ignore it. 

“I thought so,” Ben says, kindly not making a big deal out of Sammy needing two. 

Sammy awkwardly takes the pills from Ben - at least this awkwardness stems from his dominant hand being out of commission - and washes them down with milk like he’s been told. He almost gags, again. 

“Have any of you eaten today?” Emily asks in the silence that descends on them. 

Sammy is at one end of the couch, she’s at the other. Ben plops down between them and Lily takes the chair. The silence that meets her question is her answer. 

They didn’t eat because he upset them. Sammy swallows hard. He can almost feel the milk come back up. His stomach is one giant twisting knot. He really doesn’t want to yack up his pain meds and have to start again before he can get any pain relief. 

As he thinks about this, clenching his jaw against the guilt and memory induced nausea, Emily says: “I vote we order pizza then. Benny, you’re all off tonight, right?”

Ben nods. “Called Merv and said Sammy accidentally hurt himself in the bathroom, and that we needed the rest of the week off.”

“Okay. I’ve got like three things to say about that,” Sammy says voice tight with embarrassment and frustration. “One: how the hell did you say I did this,” he raises up his casted hand “ _and_ destroy the mirror on accident? Two: who’s gonna cover for us? Three: who the fuck said I need the rest of the week off?”

Ben turns to look at him fully. “You need to learn to tie your shoelaces, man. You tripped, threw your hand up to catch yourself, hit the mirror _and_ smacked your head on the way down - gave yourself a concussion. Don’t give me that look, I needed a reason for you and I to both be off. A best of will cover us, or a repeat of Chet’s show - I don’t care. And I fucking decided you needed the time off, man. You—you just went through somethin’ awful Sammy. And it brought up a lot of shit I know you try and keep buried. I think you need to be off. As your friend _and_ your producer.”

Sammy shoots to his feet, unable to stop himself. Anger over shame, after all. “What the fuck!? Are you saying I’m unfit to be on air?“

Ben stands too, glaring up at Sammy stubbornly. “No—yes—I mean, maybe!”

“That was all possible answers! Pick one!” Sammy snaps at Ben. 

Ben’s glare fades. He looks at the ground, dejected and worried. “Okay, first off, you’re hurt and on pain meds, so it’s probably best not to be On Air.”

“I can do a radio show under the influence just fine,” he argues. “I used to do Shotgun Saturday Nights blasted all the time.”

“Oh. _That_ helps your case,” Lily loud-mumbles. Sammy turns to glare at her, but Emily reaches out, puts a hand on her shoulder, and shakes her head. Lily only ever fucking listens to Emily about that little thing called tact, so she shuts up after that.

“Don’t make that face at Lily, she’s right. Getting drunk to do your show—“

“To be a fake fucking persona,” Sammy argues - as if that’s helping. As if emphasizing how much being Shotgun was killing him helps prove he’s mentally sound. A normal person, a stronger man, wouldn’t have done the show at all.

“ _Regardless_!” Ben snaps. “This is now. And now, as your friend and producer, I don’t think you should be going on the radio zonked out of your head.”

Sammy snorts. “A few Vicodin aren’t gonna ‘zonk’ me, Ben.”

“Fine! Forget that argument!” Ben shouts, flinging his hands up, a move he’s done more times than Sammy can count over the course of their friendship. It’s a perfectly normal Benism, except, this time, Sammy flinches and takes a step back before he can stop himself. He sees it register on Ben’s face, sees the guilt wash over him, and Sammy has to swallow hard to keep the milk and pills down. He stares at his socked feet, swallowing convulsively until he’s sure he won’t have to rush to the bathroom. Ben, bless him, doesn’t point out directly that it’s the second time Sammy’s backed away from a friend yelling at him. Instead, he says: “You aren’t in a great spot mentally, Sammy. I’m worried.” 

Sammy deflates and sinks back down to the couch, his knees feeling a little weak. How could he flinch from Ben? Ben! He’s got almost a foot of height on the guy, but more importantly, Sammy _knows_ he’s never in danger from his best friend, the man Sammy trusts the most in this world next to Jack. Sammy puts his head in his hands (well, the hand that’s not currently on fucking _fire_ ) and takes a deep breath. If Ben could push past his flinch, so could Sammy. Right?

“Fine.” He says trying to make clear he’s not arguing, not sulking. He doesn’t think he can bear it if Ben says ‘I’m afraid you’ll kill yourself,’ or something along those lines too. It’s all so damn much. 

After a few minutes of awkward silence, he drops his hands with a sigh and looks at the group. Most of the people he loves in this world. “Can we at least order pizza before we dig out the skeletons from my closet and address the big dead elephant in the room?” He asks, trying for humor and falling mostly flat.

“Sure! But, If you’re really hungry I can make you a—“ Ben starts.

Sammy holds his hands up, cutting him off (and only partly because Jack-in-the-Box-Jesus knows Sammy doesn’t want anything Ben could ‘make’ for him). Seeing the cast is still new and weird. It’s not his first, though, and he’ll get used to moving around it soon enough. “I’m not? Not really.” Ben opens his mouth to say something probably along the lines of ‘you have to eat.’ So Sammy heads him off. “I’ll eat when it gets here. I’m more worried about the fact that you two haven’t eaten.”

Ben and Lily look at him like he’s grown another head. Ben’s eyes water, and then Sammy is suddenly wrapped up in a hug so tight all the breath leaves his lungs in a whoosh. Or maybe that happened when Ben’s tears started. Either way, he finds himself hugging back almost as tightly as Ben holds him. 

“Ben? What…?” Sammy asks.

“It’s just—I’m stupid—“ Ben says into Sammy’s shoulder. He’s muffling his tears. But he’s really crying. Sobbing, even. _Fuck_. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t—what’s going on?” He asks it to the room and Ben since he seems incapable of answering. Maybe Emily knows what’s going on. Neither woman offers any ideas. Neither does Ben. Sammy, after a moment of just listening to Ben's breath hitch, says quietly, voice a low murmur: “I can’t help ya, buddy, if you don’t tell me what’s up.”

“Wow. That must be difficult. Loving somebody that won’t communicate about their feelings and give you any idea how to help them.” Lily deadpans from the chair. Sammy flips her the bird.

“I just—I—“ Ben pulls away and Sammy misses the hug as soon as it’s gone. 

Ben scrubs his hands down over his face and then back up into his hair. Oh shit. Ben’s really frustrated with his inability to put his heart's feelings into words. Sammy learned very early on that Ben was a man who went through life tender and raw, feeling everything and expressing his every feeling. It’s one of the things Sammy, who really has to work to express any emotion that isn’t self-hatred or anger, admires most about the smaller man. But, there’s a pitfall: when Ben can’t put his feelings into words he gets frustrated - pulling his hair like that is his number one tell that he’s unable to put his feelings into words and frustrated as fuck about it. Sammy stays silent, letting Ben work to beat his feelings into words. His patience is rewarded in a few moments.

“It’s. Stupid. I’m just—“ Ben stops, starts again, talking fast as if that will lessen the blow of his words: “I thought about making a ‘Sammy is a Dad’ joke and then I thought about how many times we’ve called you that not knowing this whole—“

Oh. _Oh fuck_. Sammy gets it. Gets what Ben is awkwardly working his way towards saying. His breath is kicked out of him for the second time but he does the leaning forward and pulling into a hug this time, before Ben can keep eeking towards the point. 

“It’s okay.” For a moment he’s the silent one trying to put words to how he feels. “I mean. I never had a ‘Dad’ so the word doesn’t bother me. I never called Him that, never thought of Him like that.” Sammy’s aware that the h in ‘him’ is capitalized in his head and his speech whenever he talks about his father, but he can’t stop it, can’t dwell on it. Not when Ben needs some comforting: “Never once, I promise. I have — had, I guess —- a father whose only contribution to me was half my DNA and showing me how to not be. When you guys call me that it’s because I’m trying to protect you all. That’s about as far from my fucking father as you can get. I never think about Him when you say it, I promise.”

Ben pulls back, wiping his eyes. He looks so distraught. “That’s…not really comforting, knowing that’s how it was for you,” Ben says, honest to a fault, but he smiles a little at Sammy, a sad watery thing. “But I’m glad it doesn’t bother you.”

“Now that you two have settled that,” Lily says, drawing their attention. “ _I_ want you to know _I’m _annoyed you’re worried about me eating when _you_ puked up everything you ate yesterday, possibly ever, at the station. How about you let us worry about us. And, fuck, while we’re at it, why don’t you let us worry about _you_ , as well?”__

__Sammy looks away, at the black tv screen. “I thought I was?” He says, a question not a statement, though he didn’t mean it to be._ _

__“So far, you snuck past the two of us - don’t lie to me and say you didn’t purposely walk by me on the couch quietly, you normal tromp around this house like a fuckin’ gorilla - to drink booze on top of opiates.”_ _

__“Sammy!” Emily says, sounding genuinely disappointed with his life choices._ _

___’Wait until you hear the rest of what I did, Em_ ,’ Sammy thinks, knowing at some point, everything that happened last night will be discussed. He can’t let only Ben know - it’s too big a demon to leave sitting on Ben’s shoulders alone. _ _

__Luckily Lily fucking Wright is on the case._ _

__“Two,” Lily says, actually counting on her fingers. “You fought with Ben about locking up your pills - a _very_ reasonable decision that the two of us made, considering you managed to fuck yourself up as bad as you did yesterday hitting that mirror until your hand was paste all while having a panic attack - don’t look at me like that it was a fucking panic attack - _and_ then had a fucking flashback so bad I had to dump water over your head because Ben wouldn’t let me slap you out it.”_ _

__Emily gasps in like she didn’t know about this - and maybe she didn’t, knowing Ben, he didn’t tell her the details, afraid of telling Sammy’s story for him. It occurs to Sammy that she may not even know his father is dead._ _

__But Lily’s not done, she keeps going on to describe the awfulness of the night before, proving why Sammy needed his pills locked away. “I mean, that was a good call, Ben, I don’t think that smacking you would’ve helped but I was terrified. Ben was terrified. _You_ were beyond terrified and bleeding all over yourself, Sammy. You’d been in there for over half an hour by the time I picked the lock...so. ..Yeah.” She falters, and Sammy will never get over hearing Lily sound unsure of herself. She’s usually so in control. It scares Sammy when she’s like this - he knows shit is _real_ if she’s that upset. He hates that he’s the one upsetting her. She continues on: “In summation: I’m not being a bitch when I say that you were a shit show last night. I’m not even counting the part where you almost forgot to pretend to be in pain at the hospital.”_ _

__“I was in pain,” Sammy argues weakly._ _

__Lily sighs. “Only point you can argue, huh?” She says in her snarky tone, then, as if she catches herself, she goes gentle again. “Sammy. Don’t lie. I’ve known you for almost twenty years. I know what it looks like when you’re all there and when you’re not. At the hospital, you were most definitely not all in your head.” She gives a sad little smile. “Besides, I heard you tell Ben you weren’t, topknot.”_ _

__Sammy scrubs his uninjured hand over his face and sinks back into the cushions of the couch. “Yeah.” He agrees, just to show he’s not being a totally sullen little bitch about it. Or denying their concerns. “Fine. I was kind of dissociating at the hospital.”_ _

__She gives him that same sad little smile. Sammy knows if he’d turn his head to check, Emily would be too. It feels like pity, everything in him screams to fight against their pity. But it’s not pity, it’s concern, he reminds himself._ _

__“So let us worry about you, for a little while, okay?” Lily finishes up. “You deserve someone to take care of you when you’re down, and we really, _really_ need to, after last night.”_ _

__How can he argue with her about that? He sighs and nods, eyes still locked on the black tv screen. He can’t look at them. He _can’t_. “I’m s—“_ _

__“I swear to God, Stevens, if you are about to apologize for last night again I will dump another bucket of water over your head.” There’s no real threat in her voice, but Sammy nods anyway._ _

__“Hmm. Maybe he could use it,” Ben says, reaching out and touching Sammy’s head. Sammy is inordinately proud of himself when he doesn’t flinch. “You’ve got blood in your hair, dude” Ben explains at Sammy’s confused look._ _

__Right. He remembers clamping his hands over his ears, and his right hand must’ve been all but gushing blood. “Shit. That’s gonna be a bitch to wash out one-handed,” Sammy sighs out. He’s broken his hand before, had casts on both his left and right arms, at different times in his past, hell, after his mother’s funeral and that disaster, he learned how fucking fun it was trying to wash his hair with broken ribs and a cast on his left hand. But he doesn’t want to think about that. Instead, he stands up and asks: “Do we have any duct tape?”_ _

__“Oh my God, you heathen!” Lily says with a laugh. Sammy will take her laughing at him if it means she’s laughing. “You are _not_ duct-taping a garbage bag over your cast like you did in college! You’re an adult. They sell cast protectors for normal adult humans, Ben already ordered you two, they should be here tomorrow.”_ _

__Sammy reaches out and bumps his casted hand into Ben’s thigh, intending on saying ‘thank you’ but the pain of jostling his hand takes over and he just grits out a curse, leaning forward and clutching his injured hand close to his chest. _Fuck!_ , that hurts. His hearing actually goes a little haywire for a moment as his heart launches into overdrive to deal with the pain and his pulse thuds in his ears. _ _

__Ben puts a hand on the back of his shoulder, rubs a small circle there. Eventually, Sammy realizes that Ben is reminding him to breathe. Right. Good. That’s. That’s a good idea. Sammy does as he’s told. Within a minute or so he’s got a handle on the pain, and he sits back up, giving Ben a thankful nod._ _

__“Don’t think I’m not grateful,” Sammy says as if he didn’t just lose a few minutes to immense pain in his entirely self-inflicted wounds. “Because I am, seriously Ben, thanks. Good looking out. But how am I supposed to take a shower now? My hair feels gross. It’s itchy.”_ _

__“We’ll do it!” Ben says, looking over at Emily to indicate who this ‘we’ is._ _

__“Uh….you’re gonna take a shower for me, or with me…? ” Sammy asks, not trying to be obtuse on purpose, but he’s genuinely confused._ _

__Ben laughs. “Uh, no, dude. We’ll wash your hair in the sink for you, while Lily orders the pizzas.”_ _

__Sammy wants to argue. But, he finds there’s not much he can argue about the plan, given everything Lily just said. “Okay. That’s... okay. Lil, can I get just plain pizza?”_ _

__She’s already going to the draw in the kitchen where they keep the takeout menus. She throws a thumbs up over her shoulder as she goes. Ben shouts ‘bee-are-bee’ and rushes to the bathroom to get Sammy’s shampoo, conditioner, and a towel (Sammy hopes he remembers that last bit)._ _

__Sammy looks at Emily. “Not to sound ungrateful, but...do I really need two people to wash my hair?”_ _

__Emily watches Ben launching himself back into the hallway, trip over the throw rug he always trips over, and drop everything in his arms twice in an attempt to pick it up the quickest he can. Her nose scrunches up in that ‘I’m watching the man I love’ way she has that is so damn adorable it makes Sammy’s heart twist with happiness for Ben. “I mean, do you want to give him unsupervised access to your hair, Sammy?” She asks, so softly he’s sure Ben can’t hear her._ _

__Laughing, Sammy stands up and follows her to the kitchen. There’s a brief awkward moment when Ben suggests he take off his shirt so it doesn’t get wet. Lily, sitting at the kitchen table, saves him with a snort: “Un-fucking-likely, Short Stacks. It’s Sammy. Sammy does not take his shirt off. How have you not realized this? Have you ever seen him shirtless?”_ _

__Ben does that ‘I’m thinking real hard’ face he has. Then frowns when he seems to realize Lily is telling the truth. His face falls, making Sammy wish he didn’t have so much baggage that it strained his friend’s backs too. “Oh. Scars.” He says, then bites his lip, eyes darting between Sammy and the two women and back again. “Fuck. Sammy. I didn’t mean—“_ _

__“It’s okay, Ben,” Sammy assures him._ _

__But Ben can’t stop himself. “It’s your story, man. I promised myself I wouldn’t go telling your story. I know what that frog-loving bastard did—“_ _

__Sammy holds up both his hands in a ‘woah there’ kinda gesture. And he takes a few steps forward, wrapping his arms around Ben. “First off, that was nothing like what Frickard-“ Ben groans like just hearing the bastard's name causes him pain - Sammy can relate. “-what he did outing me, Ben. Secondly, it’s okay. I promise...I was...I was gonna get to it all.” He looks at Emily over Ben’s head, then at Lily who is reading a menu she knows by heart rather intently, blinking way too rapidly. Fuck. He pushes on. “You heard a lot, buddy, but not all of it.”_ _

__“And you’re under no obligation to tell us any of it if you don’t want to, Sammy,” Emily assures him._ _

__Sammy tightens his hold on Ben and closes his eyes for a moment. “Yeah… I know that. And. It’s not...ya know, fun to talk about. But last night proved that holding it all inside for almost four decades wasn’t the best idea either.”_ _

__“Did Jack know?” Lily asks, not looking up from the menu. Calzones are super interesting, but Sammy thinks that is why she was tearing up._ _

__Sammy sighs. “Some of it?” He answers, not meaning to sound like he was asking a question. “I was kinda...me...about it all. Bare minimum answers. I don’t think he figured out how bad it was.”_ _

__“He thought you never walked around the apartment without your shirt on because he was openly gay and you were having a crisis about that.” Lily finally looks up as she says that. “I told him he was being ridiculous.”_ _

__Sammy lets go of Ben to go to her, rest a hand on her shoulder. She stands up and wraps him in a hug. “Funny story, that…” Sammy says. “It’s how we wound up getting together. He got drunk and confronted me about it. I was also drunk. I managed to convince him I had a body image issue...and a ‘I’m so far in the closet I’m hanging out with Mr. Tumnus’ issue. I think we were together like, six months before he ever saw me fully naked.” Jack cried and it was _awful_ but kinda nice to have someone else know what He was like, who knew why Sammy hated talking about his family so much. Sammy clears his suddenly too tight throat against the memory of Jack's tears. “I made Jack swear not to tell you.”_ _

__Lily snorts into his shoulder. “I...had my suspicions, Shotgun,” she admits. Sammy makes a ‘huh?’ kinda noise, encouraging her to go on. “You were kind of a mess. The day Jack came home ranting about his English professor and slammed the front door, you ran in the bathroom and locked yourself in there for almost two hours. Or when you broke a plate while doing dishes and did the same thing...” Sammy remembers doing these things, remembers his shameful panic attacks knowing that neither Wright twin would ever hurt him, but unable to stop his body’s reactions. He had hoped they hadn’t noticed. She pauses for a moment, then sighs before continuing, like she feels guilty for telling him the truth._ _

__“You’ve always been a shit sleeper, too. Jack slept like a log, so I don’t think your nightmares ever woke him up...but I heard you...” She doesn’t have to say what he was screaming about - Sammy remembered the nightmares. His freshman year roommate had nearly lost his mind dealing with Sammy’s sleep issues, and eventually requested a transfer out of their room. Nine times out of ten, Sammy could have a nightmare and not wake Jack when the other man was in the bed next to him._ _

__Sammy sighs, eyes clenched shut. He had a young adult’s confidence that he was hiding his shit better than he was, apparently. “I didn’t know it was that obvious.”_ _

__“I think it was only me. Jack had - has - trouble seeing the worst in people. He probably never put it all together. He and I talked about the shirt thing - he was really convinced it was because he was out...but...I didn’t think there’d be scars either, Sammy that’s…” She sighs, voice shaky. “You know how fucked up that is, I don’t have to tell you... But we knew you were tense as fuck about certain things and that you never went home or mentioned your family at all. I don’t want you to think we were talking about you behind your back, it was only ever after Jack got drunk and comfortable talking about how worried he was about you...When I found out about you and him being together I thought maybe it was just that your father was a dick about you being gay.”_ _

__“I mean, he was,” Sammy says, a weak attempt at humor._ _

__“Well, yes...but…” she sucks in a wet sounding breath. “I - we - didn’t know it was that fuckin’ bad.”_ _

__It occurs to Sammy that either Ben told Lily some of what he and Shane said yesterday, which he doubts, or she’s putting it all together from how bad he was when they first met, his flashback last night, and the mention now of scars. He hugs her a little tighter, putting his chin on the top of her head knowing she hates that he can do that, and loves it at the same time. “Observant as always, Wright,” he says murmurs. “I guess I thought you two would figure it out why I really started college a year late and that would be that...I wouldn’t have to say anything. I didn’t mean to worry either of you.”_ _

__She gives a wet sounding laugh. “I mean...have you met Jack? Your tall, handsome jock of a fiancé who worried about everything and everyone? “_ _

__Sammy closes his eyes. “I’d lied about what it was like growing up my whole life…I didn’t realize I was so bad at it all that I accidently upset you two.”_ _

__“I was a budding phenomenal journalist. And jack was obsessed with every bit of you he could discover. He fell for you the moment you walked into the campus radio station, Sammy.”_ _

__Sammy has to breathe deep past the loss aching in his chest. He’ll see Jack again, he promises himself. “It was mutual,” Sammy assures her. Even if it took almost a full two years after that for Sammy to accept that he had the hots for his bff. And then six more months before he acted on it._ _

__They stay like that for a long moment, then a gurgle sounds behind them. They turn together to look at Ben. “I might be a little bit hungry,” he admits sheepishly._ _

__Sammy chooses to focus on the smile and not the tears on Ben’s face. “Okay. Point taken. Lily do your job!” He teases, kissing the top of her head before fully letting go._ _

__He gives Ben and Emily a hug, pulling them close. Ben makes a surprised little sound, Sammy's not one to normally initiate this many hugs, and then hugs back. Pulling away, Sammy offers them a ‘thanks for hefting my baggage’ smile before he points his finger at Ben. “Do not let me regret allowing you unfettered access to my hair.”_ _

__The group laugh that follows Ben’s indignant squawk is beautiful._ _


	3. Chapter 3

It’s kinda weirdly nice to let Emily and Ben wash his hair for him. Emily does most of it, but Ben is great and squeezing shampoo or conditioner into her hands as requested. Even bent over awkwardly, face down in the sink, as he is, Sammy damn near falls asleep when Emily spends a good five minutes massaging the soap into his hair and scalp. 

After, the pills are just starting to kick in and take some of the pain from Sammy’s hand away. Enough that he can think past the throb. At some point, he’s going to have to find his discharge papers because he can’t remember the final verdict about his hand -what was broken, how many stitches that kind of thing. The pizza still isn’t there, so Sammy sits on the ottoman and lets Ben comb and braid his wet hair because it’s an easy enough thing to let Ben do. Emily assures Sammy that Ben does it all the time for her, and Ben’s beaming with pride as she says it. How could he deny his friend the satisfaction? He can’t. Not after the shitstorm he caused last night. 

The food arrives just as Ben is finishing up. Sammy’s grateful that they turn on a movie while they eat. He doesn’t mean to nod off against Ben's shoulder after forcing himself to eat a slice, but the next thing he knows is Ben waking him when the movie is over. Actually, he realizes during the credits, it’s a second movie - the sequel to the first. Which means he had an almost four-hour nap on Ben’s shoulder. A glance at the clock confirms it - it’s almost midnight. Sammy’s reminded that unlike him, Ben and Lily didn’t sleep all day when Ben yawns.

Sammy mumbles something about changing as he gets up, yawning as he goes. Vicodin makes him sleepy, and, according to Jack, cuddly as fuck, which the drool spot on Ben’s shoulder can attest to. And maybe dealing with decades-old traumas makes him tired, too. 

It isn’t fully an attempt at delaying the inevitable when he gets changed in his room, slipping into a pair of pajama pants and a sweatshirt that’s so old the sleeves are loose enough to pull over the cast and then heads to the bathroom. He does want to be comfortable, and he does need the facilities, but he is also stalling. He sits in the bathroom for a long time, telling himself it's so he can check his phone, but really he's just trying to put his head on right. 

He feels open and raw. Considering nobody’s asked him any questions, he feels a bit like he’s being overdramatic. He tries to remind himself that, aside from Jack, who he kept some of the truth from too, Sammy’s never spoken with anyone about his family, not in any real detail. He glossed over most of it with his therapist -which, in hindsight was probably not a smart idea. 

His discomfort at how open and transparent he is at the moment is manifesting in weird ways. He can’t stand the idea of the surgery scar on his right arm being half on display where it snakes out from under the cast, knowing that at least Ben now knows his excuse of ‘I fell off a skateboard’ that he’s been saying for over twenty years is bullshit - Jack was the only person that knew the truth. It’s something so small and dumb, Sammy’s seen that scar every day for two decades after at all. ..but he just _can’t_. 

There’s an awful lot of bangs and thuds coming from the rest of the apartment. That’s what finally makes Sammy leave the bathroom and head to the living room. He’s not sure what he expected to find, but what he sees is definitely not expected.

They’ve cleared the floor and set both Sammy and Ben’s mattresses in the middle of the room, together, to make one big...floor bed? The mattresses are the same height, since they're identical - Ben bought both when he moved in. Ben looks up from where he’s tucking the fitted sheet back around Sammy’s bed (Sammy has a moment to wonder if he had anything untoward tucked between the mattress and the box spring, but he doesn't think so) and offers Sammy a surprisingly shy smile. 

“My idea,” Ben admits, tugging slightly at one of his myriad of messy curls - not all the way worked up but ramping himself up.

Sammy raises an eyebrow. “Clearly,” he deadpans, then grins to show he’s teasing.

“I just…” Ben looks to Emily, then Lily before looking back at Sammy. As if he realizes the other two aren’t going to be much help. “I thought maybe a sleepover would be kinda fun?” Ben’s nervousness turns to cheeky teasing in a second flat: “But you’re an old man, so we can’t have you sleeping on the floor.”

Sammy’s trying to come up with a reason to argue this plan. Instead, he says: “I thought I was zonked on Vicodin? Surely I could sleep on the floor?”

Ben laughs, smiling goofily at Emily as she goes to pick up her overnight bag that she dropped by the front door. “Going to get changed,” she tells them. She’s the only one that’s not yet changed into their pajamas - Ben and Lily never got dressed today. 

Lily goes into the kitchen to do something - put away the leftover pizza, Sammy guesses from the sound of aluminum foil being ripped. Sammy’s ninety-nine percent sure the ladies are doing this on purpose. Leaving him alone with Ben. He’s not sure why they are. Maybe they expect a fight from Sammy - he’s been a bit short-tempered since waking up this evening, he can’t say he hasn’t, but...he can’t help being nervous that they’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop. He reminds himself that he’s in a weird headspace and he's probably a bit hard to predict at the moment. Maybe that’s why the women have left them? 

Ben flicks out Sammy’s red comforter, so it’s covering Sammy’s purloined mattress. Concentrating the hardest Ben Arnold has ever concentrated on making a bed in his life, he says, down to the comforter, not to Sammy: “I thought... Ya know how it’s easier to talk about things in the dark? Like...laying in bed with someone, or at a sleepover?”

Sammy gives Ben’s down-turned head a long, confused look for a moment, two, as he tries to process what Ben’s saying. Then he does. “Oh,” Sammy says, rather stupidly. His eyes burn and he has to blink a few times. “I — Thanks,” he says voice tight.

Ben looks up, maybe worried Sammy’s angry rather than stupidly choked up about his best friend once again proving how kind and emotionally intelligent he is. Ben’s worried look melts into a shy, soft smile. “You think it’s a good idea?”

“Would you put the beds back if I didn't?” Sammy teases, but then feels guilty and shrugs to give his real answer. “I mean...Yeah. I think so. It’ll be...easier to take, too, right?” Ben is right in that there are some things easier to say in the dark. Hidden in the half shadows of the room and the comfort of someone you love nearby. 

Ben smiles and nods. “Yeah. And...easier to cuddle on a couple of mattresses than all four of us on the couch.”

Lily comes into the room, brushing her hands off on the thighs of her pajamas - an old faded pair of sweats and a t-shirt, she runs hot, always has, in her sleep - and she comically folds her arms over her chest in an exaggeration of her typical grumpy persona. “Hey now. Who said I was going to be involved in the cuddle pile? My bed is the couch, and the couch is right there!” 

Sammy and Ben just raise their eyebrows at her, then in unison nod their heads towards Emily in the doorway opposite, having just come down it in her ‘I’m the one functional adult among us’ green plaid pajama set with a cartoon sloth on the chest. It’s a sharp contrast to Ben’s oversized t-shirt (stolen from Sammy) and black basketball shorts he sleeps in. Emily’s the only one that probably actually bought her pajamas in a set with the intent to wear them as pajamas, while the rest of them are rocking clothes that are no longer socially acceptable to wear out in public. Sammy thinks there’s a level of maturity at play in the Emily Potter method, forethought that the rest of them seem to lack for whatever the reason. The fact that she’s got her contacts out and her glasses on just makes her look more like a functioning actual adult, even standing there in her pajamas...And Sammy’s brain is wandering on him -damn pain meds. 

Emily’s also got her arms over her chest, her head tilted to the side like she’s considering Lily’s point seriously. “Lily. Don’t you _want_ to be part of the cuddle pile?”

Sammy leans into Ben and mock-whispers: “Are we saying cuddle pile way too often for a bunch of grown-ass adults?” Ben snorts and covers his laugh with a hand.

Lily is losing her ability to keep her face straight. She breaks before Emily does. Sammy likes to think his snarking helped a little. She throws up her hands. “Alright, ya got me! _Of course_ I want to be part of the cuddle pile!” 

Sammy can’t help but laugh. “You all are ridiculous. Who said _I_ want to be part of a cuddle pile?”

“Definitely one too many uses of the words ‘cuddle pile’!” Ben supplies, before heading up the hall (after pausing to kiss Emily on the nose because Sammy’s bff is kind of a giant (well, average-sized) adorable, dork. 

From his bedroom, Ben shouts: “Emily tell Sammy he already agreed!”

“You did already agree, Sammy. I heard it,” Emily says dutifully, eyes dancing mischievously. She likes her position as the voice of reason within the group. 

“Oh, doing the Little One’s dirty work now?” Lily asks, going to the living room closet to pull out her pillows from where they get stored every morning - or what amounts to morning in this place. 

“Lily. We’ve spoken about you calling Ben ‘the Little One!’” Emily says in that same kind of stern way she always has when they talk about her teasing Ben.

Lily frowns. “It’s a good descriptor for him!” Sammy would not be surprised if Lily had an authority kink under her general disdain for being told what to do. 

Sammy watches as Ben comes out of the room, detours into the kitchen, and comes over to him with a plastic tumbler of water and something in his fist. He looks kind of cross-eyed with love, hearing Emily defend his short ass. Smiling the dopey smile of a man in love, Ben tells him: “You’re due for another pill.”

Sammy is surprised to find that Ben’s right, it has been nearly six hours since he took the last dose and his hand is starting to ache. Ben hands him a single pill, holding the tumbler until Sammy’s got the pill in his mouth so Sammy doesn’t have to juggle both. 

“Should I be worried you’re not arguing about taking these?” Ben asks, seriously. That kind of kills the jokey-teasing vibe the room had. Sammy’s not even sure if Ben meant for the girls to hear the question. 

Drinking his water, suddenly so damn thirsty because the only other thing he’s drank today was fucking milk and he only managed about a quarter of the cup, Sammy shrugs lazily. When he’s killed the tumbler’s contents he responds, saying: “ I don’t think so? I could go back to being a dick about it if it makes you feel better. But...I’m not fighting it ‘cause I’m in pain. I kind of want to cut my hand off.”

He’s hoping that soon, a few days maybe, he can start saying no to the Vicodin because that shit makes him sleepy. He just hopes that the trend of it being a dreamless sleep continues. 

Ben frowns as he heads back to the kitchen to put the cup in the sink. “I’m sorry, man,” he says, sincerely, over his shoulder. When he comes back into the living room a moment later, Ben’s expression is still stormy with guilt. _Shit_. “Maybe I should’ve cut the call—“

“—don’t,” Sammy says, voice tight, almost breaking. “I can’t—I can’t listen to you beat yourself up about it, Ben. _I can’t_. I’m a grown-ass adult. I knew what I was doing answering Shane’s call the second time.” Ben opens his mouth, probably to argue Sammy wasn’t in his right mind. But Sammy doesn’t let him talk. “And _I’m_ the asshole that hit the mirror, Ben. I hit it a lot. Doing that was my choice, too. I made terrible choices last night, not you. So please, _please_ , stop blaming yourself.” 

Ben’s mouth twists like he’s thinking about ways to poke holes in Sammy’s arguments. His shoulders droop in defeat. Sammy can’t have that, either. He leans in and wraps Ben in a hug, holding him close. 

“I’m okay, buddy,” he promises, quietly. “I fucked up, and my hand hurts. That’s all...you were there for me when I really needed you yesterday. You didn’t let Lily bitch slap me out of a flashback.”

Sammy looks at Lily over Ben’s head, gives her a sad lopsided grin to show he’s teasing. Lily, more than anyone else in his King Falls family, knows what he’s like, how he uses humor as a crutch in emotionally trying situations. She smiles back at him, and Sammy knows the joke is okay with her. He’ll probably have to check in with her alone at some point, make sure she knows he’s not upset about her instinct to slap him out of his panic-attack-slash-flash-back, but he thinks it can wait until tomorrow.

Ben proves why when he pulls out of the hug, looking less defeated, but yawning so hard his jaw cracks audibly. Sammy winces in sympathy. 

“You okay, man?” Sammy asks quietly. 

Ben nods and moves to sit down on his mattress, on the inside where the two mattresses meet. He takes hold of Sammy’s left wrist and pulls him down with him. Sammy figured this is how they’d end up, him and Ben in the middle, Lily on his mattress with him, Emily on Ben’s. Lily shuts most of the lights off, but because she knows Sammy and his newfound phobia of the dark (thanks, Void) without him ever having to say a word about it, she leaves the kitchen light on. It’s just enough ambient light filtering in that they’re not in the kind of darkness that Sammy now hates.

They all kind of shuffle around to get comfortable. No real cuddling yet, but it does feel like a good minute away from Sammy being force cuddled. Like at any minute someone’s going to be wrapping him in a hug. It’s… kinda nice. 

Silence descends on them. Sammy knows they have questions. He had vowed not to leave Ben alone in knowing everything. It’s a heavy burden and Sammy can’t saddle him with the knowledge alone. But he can’t get himself to start talking. It’s like every one of the thousand times Sammy almost came out to Ben, to anyone in King Falls. The words are suddenly gone. No. That’s not right. The words are solidified in his throat and he can’t get them out. 

It’s Lily who talks first, after a few minutes of Sammy just laying there listening to his heart pound faster, his breath coming in short and shorter pulls. Not a full-on freakout, but maybe ramping up to one. 

“Is it easier if we ask you questions? Get you started? I know that’s hard sometimes. Starting,” she asks, voice surprisingly gentle. 

He smiles in the dim room. He and Lily are very similar in so many ways. That’s probably why they fought for so long. He nods mutely, head rustling against the pillows. 

She reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, a solid comfort, a reminder that she’s not going anywhere. None of them are. They’re all so damn invested in his well being that they figured out how to sleep on the floor physically comfortably to make him emotionally comfortable while he talks about things he’d really rather not - things that aren’t easy for them to hear, either. Who wants to lay in a group and listen to one of your best friends telling you about getting the shit beat out of him for his entire childhood and teen years? But they know he shouldn’t continue on holding everything in, and they’re willing to hurt too, to help him take some of the weight off his shoulders. Sammy blinks his suddenly burning eyes. He loves them so much. 

And so they do. They each ask him questions about Shane, his father, and his mother until Sammy stops needing prompting to go on. It’s awful because he knows they don’t want the whole story, no really, but keeping it in was killing him, so they keep asking. At some point, he winds up being held by both Lily and Ben, with Emily reaching over Ben to massage Sammy's scalp, and damn that woman missed her gift in life by becoming a librarian instead of a masseuse. 

Lily only gets mad when she finds out Sammy lied about how he wound up so beaten up the year they turned twenty-one, their senior year - the incident that happened after Sammy crashed his mother’s funeral. He told her the truth: he wasn’t ready to tell her and Jack about how awful his family really was -‘I’d known you for years at that point, Sammy that cat was out of that very transparent bag’ - which was why he lied and claimed he was caught up in a bar fight that escalated. In truth, he had signed himself out of the hospital against medical advice and drove back to their college in a daze. Both Wrights were in class when he stumbled home to their shared apartment and found him several hours later passed out on his bed. It really was a testament to how fucked up Sammy must've acted back then, that neither sibling questioned if Sammy had really gone out, gotten the piss beaten out of him to the point that he had broken bones, and then didn't call them from the hospital. 

It doesn’t hurt as much as Sammy feared it would, telling them the truth, the whole truth that he didn’t even tell Jack. There are tears. Lots of tears, from all of them. And Sammy is certain Ben is going to crack one of his ribs like RoboTim did - that’s how tightly the smaller man is clinging to Sammy. It hurts, telling them, but it’s not awful. Telling somebody, three somebodies, what his life was like back then. He feels lighter, unburdened from the weight that he was sinking under the memories all on his own. Now the three of them, Jack when he returns too, know what Sammy went through. They can help him avoid his triggers

When he surfaces from a nightmare a few hours after talking himself into an exhausted sleep, Sammy finds himself surrounded by warmth and love, full of kind words and gentle, sleepy assurances. He drifts back off half-aware that this is really why they’re all sleeping together like this. His friends want to protect him even from his own subconscious. 

His biological family was awful. But at least his real family, the one he’s made King Falls and even before then with Lily and Jack… this family is damn good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading this one. 
> 
> I think I might play around more in this verse, someday. would anyone be interested in that?

**Author's Note:**

> the plot/warnings: Sammy gets a phone call from his estranged brother telling him their father died. Sammy's brother is homophobic towards Sammy, calls him several slurs and also uses one towards a Mexican neighbor. They discuss their father's abuse towards both brothers and their mother. Sammy's brother blames both Sammy and their mother for their own abuse and it is implied/outright stated that it was worse for Sammy than his brother b/c of Sammy's sexuality. Sammy has semigraphic flashbacks to two incidents where he was severely assaulted - one by his father attacking him with a baseball bat, another with several family members jumping him. Their mother's fatal alcoholism is discussed and Sammy reveals that from a young age, she used to give him chocolate milk and rum after he was beaten by his father as a way to sooth him/get him to sleep. Sammy has a panic attack and a flashback and punches a mirror several times. His attempt at suicide via The Void is discussed, as are depression and anxiety. Sammy takes opiate pain meds, though he doesn't abuse them, it's discussed how they could be used to commit suicide....
> 
> Please let me know if i missed anything, this one is a bit on the epic side, so I might've missed a warning!


End file.
